


Carrying a Torch

by FlirtyFroggy



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: M/M, Overthinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-14
Updated: 2010-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-14 11:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlirtyFroggy/pseuds/FlirtyFroggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unable to sleep, Caspian takes to wandering the castle at night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carrying a Torch

**Author's Note:**

> Set between Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Fits into my [Keeping Up Appearances](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/keeping_up_appearances) universe, a blend of book-verse & movie-verse. Apologies for the title — I couldn't help myself.
> 
> A note on age: In the Keeping Up Appearances universe the Pevensies and Caspian are older than in the books, as they are in the movies. In other words, everyone is old enough to be doing the things they are doing.

Caspian should have been in bed, asleep. That was what any sensible person would be doing at such an hour. But Caspian could not sleep, had not been able to sleep for some time, and could no longer stand to remain in his bed staring up at the ceiling. And so he found himself walking the corridors for the third night in a row, prowling round the castle like a caged animal.

He did not know which was worse; the wakefulness at night or the exhaustion during the day. He kept hoping that, given how tired he was every night when he fell into bed, he would be able to get some sleep. Yet as soon as his head touched the pillow he was wide awake, his mind jumping through a hundred different subjects, his body restless. When he did manage to doze off, it was to the accompaniment of the screams of dying soldiers on the battlefield, or the chatter of a hundred envoys clamouring for Narnia’s attention, or the whispers of a court waiting to see how their new king would fare. Sometimes, more often than he would care to admit, his dreams were of dark eyes and pale skin in the moonlight, of knowing smiles and whispered desires and desperate touches. He woke from them all with a racing heart and no chance of sleeping again. He had lost count of how many nights he had watched his window until the stars disappeared and the sky turned grey and then pink. A kitchen girl would arrive with his breakfast on a tray before it ever reached blue.

Tonight’s dreams had been worse than usual. Two of his torments had seen fit to join forces against him and he had been plagued by images of Edmund dying over and over again until he was jolted awake by his own cries. He stalked the length of the upper corridor of the east wing, trying to rid himself of the image of Edmund begging him to come to his aid while the White Witch pinned him down with her dagger to his throat.

He pushed open the door at the end of the corridor with such force that it hit the wall with a crash and rebounded painfully into him. Cursing, he pushed it more gently and stepped through into the gallery. The stern faces of his ancestors glared down at him as he passed, doing nothing to make him feel restful. At the end of the gallery hung his father’s portrait, looking, Caspian thought, more disappointed than disapproving. Beside it was Miraz’s picture. Caspian had considered taking it down, but there was no point pretending he had not existed; glossing over history would not change it. He stood gazing at his father’s portrait for a long time until restlessness overtook him again; he turned his back on the picture, as he had the previous night and the night before that, and walked out of the gallery.

Following the corridor would eventually lead him back to his own rooms; instead he all but ran down the stairs and out into the courtyard, his footsteps clattering on the stone. He slowed to a more sedate walk as the guards on the gate looked at him curiously, and proceeded to pace the courtyard.

He would give anything to be able to go to the stables, saddle up Destrier and gallop out of the gate. But as Trumpkin had repeatedly told him, as though he didn’t already know, wandering the countryside alone was not wise at the moment. There would be any number of people who would happily take advantage of the recent political upheaval. Some part of him said ‘so what’, but he pushed it down. It would all be for nothing if he went and got himself killed now.

Suppressing a sigh, though he was not sure for whose benefit he was suppressing it, he turned to leave the courtyard and return to his rooms. As he mounted the steps, a flash of silver caught his eye. Curious, he went to investigate the item which seemed to have fallen between the steps and one of the statues of Caspian the First that flanked them. He laughed quietly to himself when he realised what it was and bent to retrieve it. It was stuck, but a little careful jiggling freed it easily enough.

Edmund’s torch. Caspian turned it over in his hands, wondering if worry and lack of sleep had finally taken their toll on his mind. He had again attracted the attention of the guards and they called out to him to ask if everything was all right. His attention on the torch, he waved away their concerns and made his way back to his rooms, his feet automatically following the familiar route.

He found himself back in his bedroom with some surprise and sat down on the edge of the bed with a thump, still staring at the torch. He had forgotten Edmund had lost it during the raid; there had been other things on his mind. It seemed like a strange sort of miracle that he should find it now. There were a few dents and scratches, but it seemed to have survived the fight reasonably well. He pushed the switch. It still worked, and Caspian could not help marvelling at the way the beam of light appeared instantaneously. He entertained himself for a few minutes flicking the torch on and off and making the white light dance across the walls and furniture. The first time he had seen Edmund turn it on, Caspian had asked in awe how his people had learned to capture moonlight and starlight to carry around with them. Edmund had struggled to contain his laughter as he tried to explain electricity. Caspian still did not really understand it and was sure there was magic involved somewhere, despite Edmund’s protestations to the contrary.

He carefully covered the end of the torch with his hand, remembering that Edmund had said a bulb left on for a long time would get hot enough to burn. It was only slightly warm, but Caspian was diverted by something Edmund had not mentioned; his own fingers glowing as the light shone through them. He spent a long time staring in fascination at his orange fingers and the reddish glow of the cracks between them, like the sky at sunset, before he remembered in some panic that electricity did not last forever. He would wear down the — what had Edmund called it? The battery. He turned the torch off and placed it carefully on the table beside his bed. Then he slipped off his boots and lay down to commence his nightly vigil of the lightening sky.

When he was awakened by the arrival of breakfast, it took him a few moments to realise he had been asleep at all. When he did, a grin broke across his face. He had slept! True, it couldn’t have been for more than three hours at the most but it was an improvement on none at all. He greeted the kitchen girl cheerily; perhaps a little too cheerily, judging by the nervous way she bobbed her curtsey and backed out of the room. He thought of how he had sleep-walked through the last few days, the anxious way the guards had spoken to him the night before, the worried glances he had seen pass between Trumpkin and Cornelius, and wondered if the entire castle thought he was going mad. Perhaps he was.

He leaped out of bed, bolted down his breakfast and grabbed Edmund’s torch from the table. He was at the door before he realised his feet were bare and he was wearing the same clothes he’d had on when he collapsed into bed in the early hours of the morning. He threw on some fresh clothes and tugged on his boots, tangling the laces in his haste. There was no real urgency to his task — he could do at it any time — but he wanted a moment to himself before the demands of a kingdom descended on him once again and it seemed somehow important that he take that moment today, now.

He finally got his boots on and dashed out of the room, along the corridor and down the stairs. Arriving at the more populated parts of the castle, he forced himself to walk at a more king-like pace until he arrived at the great hall. It was empty at this time in the morning, but it would not remain so for long. He crossed the room quickly, unlocked the door beside the dais and slipped through it.

Here were housed the treasures of the royal family of Telmar along with the contents of the treasure chamber at Cair Paravel, removed here for safe keeping until the castle could be rebuilt, something Caspian was determined to do no matter what Trumpkin said. At the end of the chamber were the prized possessions of the kings and queens of old: Peter’s sword and shield, Susan’s bow and arrows and horn, Lucy’s dagger and healing cordial. These had been gifted to them by Aslan and were more precious to Caspian than anything else. There was no gift belonging to Edmund. Caspian had wondered at this when he had heard the stories as a boy, and had wondered even more when he had met Edmund and found that it was true; he had always assumed that the knowledge of Edmund’s gift had been lost over the centuries, but apparently that was not the case. He had longed to ask but had not dared. Now he would not get the chance.

Stepping carefully around golden statues and chests full of jewels, Caspian approached the table. He hesitated a moment before placing the torch beside Peter’s sword: he knew with absolute certainty that Edmund would laugh if he knew about this. It was a common item in his world and to Edmund was not at all the wonderful thing it was to Caspian. But it was a small piece of Edmund where previously there was none, and that was wonderful enough. Caspian placed it on the table, where it lay incongruously between the great sword with which Peter killed the Wolf and the horn that had summoned the kings and queens of the Golden Age from the past.

Laughing at himself and not knowing whether to be relieved or sorry that Edmund could not see his foolishness, Caspian turned and walked back into the great hall.

*****

Caspian watched the men emptying the chamber, feeling quietly pleased with himself. He had done it. The lords had been sceptical, Cornelius concerned and Trumpkin downright scornful, but he had done it. In a little over two years he had rebuilt Cair Paravel from a barely-recognisable ruin to the glorious castle it had been during High King Peter’s reign. It was the final touch he needed to convince the last few doubting Narnians that he was indeed on their side, that they no longer had anything to fear from the Telmarines; they were all Narnians now. And it meant that he no longer had to live here, in what he still thought of as Miraz’s castle.

All the royal treasure was being moved there, where it would be placed in a new, public chamber; the Telmarine and the Narnian, side by side for all to see. The men were quick and efficient and it was not long before only the Gifts remained. Only Caspian was allowed to remove these from the chamber, and he waited until the last man had left with the last goblet before approaching the table. These would take pride of place, and Caspian thought once again what a shame it was that there were only three instead of four. He smiled as he ran a finger lightly over Edmund’s torch. It was very well here, where the only other people who saw it were Trumpkin, Cornelius and Drinian, but he could hardly hang it on the wall at Cair Paravel. He slipped it inside his tunic and reached for Rhindon.

The sword sat comfortably in his hand. Soon, he and his army would have to ride north to deal with the giants once and for all. If that went well, he would then embark on the next impossible task he had set for himself. The ship, by all accounts, was coming on at a fine pace and Caspian was impatient to see it. He placed Rhindon and the shield in the chest at his feet and picked up Susan’s horn. He had carried this as often as he had carried Peter’s sword and it felt almost as familiar. He was never sure if it was just his imagination, but he thought sometimes he could feel it thrumming. The horn followed the sword and shield into the chest, as did the bow and arrows, with their still-taut string and the fletching as fresh as the day they were made. Lucy’s dagger and cordial were next. The dagger had rarely left the chamber but the cordial had seen a lot of use, though the bottle was still half-full.

As if in answer to a summons Caspian had not yet given, Drinian appeared in the doorway. Caspian closed the chest with a bang and together they carried it out into the courtyard, where Caspian‘s groom waited with Destrier. The chest would not travel to Cair Paravel with the rest of the royal treasure; instead Caspian and Drinian heaved it into the cart carrying Caspian’s personal possessions, where it sat beside his books and astronomy equipment and the extensive contents of his wardrobe.

“Sire, will you—” Drinian broke off, staring at Caspian’s chest with a troubled frown. Caspian looked down at himself and laughed out loud. There was a strange bulge in his tunic where the torch made him look as though there were some weird growth on his chest.

“King Edmund’s torch,” he explained. “It did not seem appropriate somehow for it to go to Cair Paravel with the other…” he almost called it a treasure but caught himself just in time. It was valuable to no one but himself. “Items,” he said after a moment’s pause.

“Of course, Sire,” Drinian said in that maddening, inscrutable way of his. Caspian, however, was in too good a mood to care what Drinian thought of his occasional odd behaviour.

“Have you seen the castle?” he said, swinging himself up onto Destrier as Drinian mounted his own horse beside him.

“Only from a distance, Sire. When I have been down at the dock.”

“Is the ship really coming on as well as the reports say?”

“You disbelieve them, Sire?” Drinian said with a smile as they set off behind the cart.

“Of course not. I’m just anxious to see it myself.”

“Her, Sire. Not it. Ships are female.”

“I keep forgetting.”

It was a long ride to Cair Paravel and they were hot and tired by the time they arrived. They had overtaken the caravan some way back, and it was with a sinking heart that Caspian realised he had no fresh clothes. Still, nothing could subdue him for long on this day. He found he had extra reserves of energy as he bounded up the front steps. Tapestries already hung on the walls, sunlight shone through the stained-glass windows and there was a great deal of activity as people bustled about the castle. It was, he knew, little like the Cair Paravel that had existed in the Golden Age. They had done their best to determine the layout and design from the few descriptions that had survived and what little was left of the building itself, but much of it had been guesswork.

He gasped as he entered the great hall. His orders for this room had been very specific and his hopes had been high, but he had not expected this. His people had outdone themselves, and he knew he must find some way to thank them. The glass roof, which he knew had been in the original castle thanks to Lucy, soared above him, revealing a bright blue sky. Tapestries covered the walls, depicting scenes from Telmarine and Narnian history: the journey out of Telmar; Aslan singing Narnia into being; Queen Lucy meeting Tumnus the faun beneath the lampost; story after story covering the walls of the vast room. Caspian had chosen the subjects himself, though he had not told anyone the reason for his choices. Only he knew that they were all stories that had been told the night after the Battle of Beruna, as he sat beside Edmund in the firelight. He had wanted to include a depiction of the siege of Troy, but had thought he might have some trouble explaining that one.

A dais ran along one end of the hall, and here the original castle had survived enough to be used. The steps were the same ones that Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy had walked up; the floor was the floor where they had stood. Where once there had been four thrones there was now only one, though the kings and queens’ coats of arms hung on the wall behind, flanking Caspian’s own. It was a fine line to walk, reminding people of the glory of Old Narnia that had put him on the throne without making them wish that Old Narnia were still here.

He spent the next two hours walking around the castle, exploring every inch of it. He found he kept returning to the terrace that ran off the side of the great hall and looked over the ocean. The ocean. As a child he had longed to see it, though he had never been allowed. And now he would live beside it. Soon, he would sail over it. A faint sense of trepidation crept through him, though it was nothing next to his excitement and happiness. The sea was vast, seemingly endless. Looking east to the horizon, Caspian could well believe it went on forever. He leaned against the balustrade, then pulled back as Edmund’s torch dug into him. He pulled it out and studied it. It looked exactly as it had done when he had found it two years ago; the same scratches and dents. He wondered what Edmund would make of him rebuilding Cair Paravel and if he would understand his reasons. He thought he would — the political reasons at any rate. The others, he was not so sure about. His hand fumbled a little and he nearly dropped the torch. He tightened his grip and imagined it tumbling over the balustrade and disappearing into the water below. Resolving to be more careful in future, he tucked it back into his tunic and went to see if the caravan had arrived yet.

It had not only arrived but unloading had already begun and his own belongings were already in his rooms. Taking the stairs two at a time, he ran upstairs, suddenly desperate to get out of his sticky clothes and into something clean. He had not felt this dirty since his days of hiding in the woods.

He arrived at his rooms just as the maids were leaving. He asked one of them to bring hot water and then went to inspect his own quarters. They were as perfect as the rest of the castle. Perhaps he could get a tapestry of the siege of Troy in here; it was his personal space after all, he could have whatever he liked on the walls.

Someone had laid fresh clothes on his bed, and there was a note from Drinian saying he would be down at the docks whenever Caspian was ready to join him. Caspian removed Edmund’s torch and placed it on the bed. He was about to peel off his clothes when he remembered he had almost lost the torch once that day. He needed to put it somewhere safe.

He looked around the room until his eyes alighted on his dresser. He pulled open one of the drawers and took out a wooden box containing a few personal mementos: some letters from his father, his mother’s locket, a shell he had once found as a boy and which was until recently the closest he had ever come to a beach. The torch would not fit in the box but it would fit nicely alongside it if he positioned them both carefully.

He hesitated a moment, then flicked the switch. In the daylight there was no sudden beam of light, but Caspian could see that the bulb inside was lit. It still worked. He turned it off straight away, fearful of wasting the battery, though he had no idea what he was saving the battery for. He placed the box and the torch in the drawer, then closed it gently and went to get ready to meet Drinian.


End file.
